As soon as David Carradine's Kill Bill Diary dropped onto our office doorstep, we knew we had to share some of it with you. Seemingly constructed entirely from hip quotes and anecdotes, we could have compiled a top-50 list from its contents.
THE QUOTE
“I was trying to get up the nerve to fly to Austin, Texas, to try to hobnob with QT (the nerve and the bread). I had run into Quentin at a club about a month earlier, where we had both gone to hear Jeff Goldblum’s jazz combo (Jeff plays a mean piano), and he’d rapped with me for a couple of hours, about all kinds of things, but all of it had to do with movies, Quentin doesn’t care about anything else.”
WHAT MAKES IT COOL
Firstly, David still calls money ‘bread,’ like he’s a hipster in some ‘70s exploitation flick (we’re starting to see why he and QT might have hit it off), secondly, they hooked up at a bar where Jeff Goldblum played jazz piano . There is nothing about that concept that doesn’t bring a gleeful grin to our faces.
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THE QUOTE
“I think it may have been Tom Wolfe (if it wasn’t, my apologies, Tom, and my apologies to whoever it was) who said in print once, ‘David Carradine lives the life that Hunter Thompson only writes about.’”
WHAT MAKES IT COOL
Normally we don’t like the clang of a name drop, but in this instance, we think we can forgive. What makes it even cooler is the fact that Carradine can’t even remember who said it. If anyone called us the real Hunter S, we’d probably remember the by-line.
THE QUOTE
“So I put on some jeans, cowboy boots, a tank top with something about .357s on it, and a big, heavy, black leather jacket from Kung Fu, The Legend Continues, climb into Annie’s huge black GMC SUV with the Harley sticker on it, with Thunder, my Bernese mountain dog, in the back (he goes everywhere with me) and haul over to Quentin’s pad in the Hollywood Hills.”
WHAT MAKES IT COOL
This may well be the coolest 67 words ever committed to print. The mind boggles about how many ticks David’s morning routine gets on the hip-checklist. In an ideal world, we’d like to haul over to Quentin’s pad, dressed like a cowboy, with a mountain dog in the back of our SUV, but we’re more used to going to our mate Greg’s house, in jeans and a t-shirt, after feeding the cat.
THE QUOTE
“Uma rehearsed wearing a pair of hip-hugging jeans and a little top that showed her creamy tanned midriff and her cute bellybutton. For the takes she changed into a floor-length white wedding dress, with a basketball or something inside it to stand in for the baby she was supposed to be pregnant with. She looked adorable.”
WHAT MAKES IT COOL
It’s Uma Thurman, through David Carradine’s eyes. From anyone else, this might seem a bit sleazy, but it helps that the full book feels, in places, like a love letter to Uma. We also like the fact that he doesn’t care for details like what’s actually standing in for the baby (‘a basketball or something’) – he’s too busy looking at Thurman.
THE QUOTE
“At one point, as I’m squeezing out my last words, my own real emotions in turmoil – between love, regret, courage, elegance, all kinds of conflicting stuff, plus choking on the fake blood – Uma reaches out and touches my hand. Quentin jumps on that. He orders up an insert of our hands, and we play out a heartbreaking little story with our fingertips. Quentin calls it a whole other movie.”
WHAT MAKES IT COOL
One of the most beautiful moments in Vol.2; regaled gracefully by Carradine. He might be a cowboy who hangs out in jazz bars living wilder than Hunter S. Thompson, but he’s sure got a way with words. Oh, and the fact that he’s choking on fake blood while trying to conjure ‘love, regret, courage and elegance,’ helps.
The Kill Bill Diary, by David Carradine, is published on 17 September by Methuen Drama, priced £12.99 and you can buy it here
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